FEATURE: Josh Boutwell reviews 8/7 Impact Wrestling

I know I’m sounding like a broken record here lately but damn that was a fun show! I will take sounding like a broken record as long as it is me saying how fun the shows have been. At a time when so much negativity has been spread about TNA they are truly knocking it out of the park with some of the most flat out entertaining wrestling shows in Impact history and I am enjoying recapping and reviewing almost every second of them.

The opening brawl between Bram and Abyss was pretty entertaining and I’ve said before that I do love Bram’s aggressiveness that he shows and he took some pretty wicked bumps. If I had a complaint it would be that they didn’t need to put this match on the same card as that Hardcore War. It would have stood out a lot more had it not been on the same card as that match especially with all the emphasis put on it with the Bully Ray/Dixie angle. Also, it kind of hurt the Hardcore Match because they didn’t do anything near as violent as using the thumbtacks or the barbed wire board.

Regardless the Hardcore War was really fun and the fans were loving every second of it which made it that much more entertaining. Al Snow got a pop from me because I was shocked at how well he looked out there. EC3 continues to take really good ass beatings.

The 6-Man Tag was just okay and I’m just not really interested in this storyline especially considered everything else that is going on in TNA. It was cool to see the Bro-Mans finally get another win though.

Excellent tease backstage with Joe and Ki and man do I wish they would let those two feud for a couple of months. The physical, brutal style matches they would have would be something to see. The match itself was really great but I honestly think we’ve only scratched the surface of what those three could do. Still the reversals and counters in the match were spectacular without going overboard. Storm’s treatment of Sanada was pretty rough and it is going to be interesting to see how all that plays out.

The Knockouts segment really wasn’t very good and the crowd crapping all over it didn’t help. I question the logic of a champion picking three opponents. Even if you can argue that she is trying to cause dissension in the BP, it is still pretty dumb.

Solid promo from MVP again and Bobby Roode was excellent as well.

The final segment was just as spectacular as I expected. The crowd was so absolutely hot for it and they got the payoff of this long build up that they wanted. The fans absolutely were starving for Dixie to go through that table and I was one of the people questioning TNA continuing to tease us with that, but I can surely admit when I am wrong and I think I was definitely wrong. All the teases built up to an awesome payoff and the Dixie Carter character is laid to rest once and for all (at least for now) in spectacular fashion. Kudos to Dixie, a woman who has not one minute of wrestling training, for being brave enough to take that bump for her company. All the criticism she takes, some from me surely, she deserves credit where credit is due. I love that the fans started the night chanting “ECW” but where chanting LOUDLY “TNA” by the end of the night. Paul Heyman has made comments recently about TNA using the ECW name to gain pops but I don’t see it that way. They used that ECW name and the ECW names to play to the ECW fan base and in the end give them some great stuff that made them TNA fans if they weren’t already. I think going from the “ECW” chants to the “TNA” chants so loudly illustrates what I’m talking about.